Easter Outfits

Today we had our Easter Sunday program since this year Easter falls on General Conference Sunday. So the kids got to wear their new Easter clothes. I wanted them to match this time around, so I had to make everything so the boys' ties would be the same as Hannah's dress.

Taylor's tie was on clearance and fit in with the orange theme. I decided to make myself a dress as well since I'm improving so much at making clothes. I went to the store to find some bright, spring knit fabric. And came home with black as usual...all my Sunday clothes are black! At least this one does have orange/pink/purplish flowers, so it is a little bright.

Isn't everyone so cute?

Snow Day!

The gal on the right (Sarah) is the kids' babysitter and then her younger sister (Alex) is on the left...they live across the road. So convenient!




On Wednesday everyone got to stay home...both preschools and Taylor's office were closed! So we had a ton of fun playing in the snow and being together. (if we're being honest, Hannah and I sat in the house for all but about 10 minutes, but Taylor and the boys had fun in the snow...=]) Plus it was 45 degrees and half melted by the end of the day. That's my ideal snow day!

We made yummy homemade pizza (with whole wheat crust) for dinner and really enjoyed hanging out mid-week!

March Madness

lights, darks, score!!

Since Hannah's high chair is right next to the counter with the boys' stools she gets in on all the action. Lately she has taken to reaching over and placing her bowl, cup, spoon, etc on the counter and is so pleased with herself. The other day we were all chatting and I look down to see she is holding Matthias' bowl and eating out of it. At about the same time Matthias looked down and saw his bowl missing. He turned to Hannah and grabbed it saying "Hannah Mae!" The tone of his voice was hilarious!

I love to eat, eat, eat

Hannah loves eating. And she really likes most anything except eggs. In any form. Well plain, obviously in cookies they are fine. I give her some probably once a week just to make sure she still hates them. A couple days ago I put a small piece of scrambled with cheese in her mouth. She made a horrid face, spit it out and then proceeded to look all offended that I would be so mean.


A week or so ago she got her first taste of honey and is totally in love with the stuff! Whenever she sees the bottle she starts in on "that one, that one, that one" until we give it to her. She likes it on most anything. In fact the other day we tried wheat berries (whole grains of unmilled wheat cooked so they get big and soft and then you just eat them). No one else was really impressed, but Hannah loved the stuff...because we put honey on it.


She refuses to eat with a spoon or utensil of any kind. She'll kind of look at it funny and throw it on the ground then just dig in. Yogurt and applesauce get especially messy this way. I've tried showing her and doing hand over hand, but she would rather go for fistfuls.


She also loves broccoli (like all my abnormal children), grapefruit, and even had some fish the other day. So far all our kids are excellent eaters and we're glad Hannah is joining us!

Talking and Signing

Hannah is a very communicative little girl and it's lots of fun. Although lately she is totally stuck on "that one, that one, that one" and will say it over and over again for anything she wants trying to point in the direction of what she wants, but invariably there are a several items she could want in that direction so we are still left guessing and wishing she would just sign. But apparently this is more fun.

Her verbal words are:

Dada*
Mama
Duck (her very favorite which she will sign and say over and over for anything with a beak)
Dog
Bath
Love you
That one
Hi
James


She has learned a ton more signs since the last time I wrote them down so I won't remember them all, but some are:

elephant
please
blanket
shirt
diaper
horse

Hannah is so fun to have around and so much different than either of the boys, we love it!


*which she shouted the whole time Taylor was praying last week in sacrament mtg and as we have the only kids under 5 we're the noisy bench already


These pictures really have nothing to do with talking and signing, but they're cute. and I made that shirt for Hannah...my clothes skills are improving vastly!

Books

Hannah is really starting to get into books. She has always loved feeling books and flap books (who doesn't?) and while these are still her favorites, she now actually likes other books too.

She loves to scoot over to her bookshelf and pick out a book. Then she scoots back to hand me the book and climb in my lap (this is why scooting on your bum is more effective than crawling because you can carry things around with you). After I'm done reading she scoot away, book in hand to replace it on the shelf and pick out a new one.

At the library the other day she would pick up a book and look at it, then hand it to me and say "dat on, dat on". It was really cute. We've got another book lover!

Boys' Speak

James: Will we have Z forever? (our Toyota Sienna)
Me: Yes. You can drive him when you learn to drive.
James: I'm not going to drive Z because he's not a Boxter. (as in Porche Boxter)
Me: (laughing) You're not going to drive a Boxter until you save up $50,000.

Matthias then starts describing the car he will drive...

Matthias: Red like Dad's car, with fire, with a speed peddle.
James: You're gonna have to make this car, no stores have this car. When you grow up you're gonna have to make this car.
Matthias: We need some wood.

Tumbling

Matthias is my little tumbler. He has taken four classes now and really enjoys it. The teacher is starting to let him do some different exercises the other kids don't do like going all the way around the bar, etc. He does really well, but sometimes doesn't sit still great. He can't always wait all the way until his turn. But he does good. Here are some pictures of my tumbling boy

Luck of the Irish

St.Patrick's Day at our house comes only after Christmas and Easter in importance and anticipation. The festivities begin the night before laying out clothes for the next day and making sure your pajamas have green so you don't get pinched before you can get dressed.

The morning started out with the usual pot of gold left by a Leprechan...this year his footprints were somehow leading out of the hall closet, but James couldn't find him still in there.

Next were the traditional green pancakes (the boys have been asking for them for weeks) which were whole wheat/whole oat this year as we are going all natural and whole foods. Very yummy. Both the boys had preschool today which was really fun for them to wear green and actually see someone besides me.


For lunch we had peas, granny smith apples (w/brie), and green honey butter on bread. Then spent the afternoon listening to some sweet Irish music, playing the sandbox/napping/reading, visiting the library and wandering the lake paths behind it.





Then home for some yummy corned beef and cabbage, which was delicious. Topped the night off with games in the front yard and pistachio pudding. And last but not least, dancing a jig to Irish Fiddle music.


Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tongue Injury

Matthias was hanging on the side of the tub (fully clothed thankfully), and I walked out of the room to start dinner. He comes out of the bathroom screaming with a mouth full of blood. Those are the worst because then you don't even know what is injured...teeth, tongue, gums, etc. I finally got enough cleaned up to see it was the tongue. And you can't really do much about tongues, but it was so long and deep and nasty. So I opted for taking him in. (when we arrived 20 minutes later with no bleeding and Matthias happily jumping around it was one of those parenting moments where you're thinking 'why did I come to the doctor again'?)

However, the doctors did have a debate whether to stitch it, but decided realistically to stitch a 3 year old's tongue you would have to sedate him and that was a little much. (normally they just numb your tongue and hold it out, Matthias would so not be into that) So since it didn't go quite all the way through his tongue they decided it would be ok and would heal on it's own. It was deep, and long, and nasty. It looked really sore. Matthias has an incredible pain tolerance.

Oh, and Taylor was out of town so I had to go into urgent care with all three children and the nurse said "Do you have more at home? Or is this all?"

And when the doctor was checking Matthias he jumped/fell off the table. I'm surprised he didn't bite off his whole tongue. So pretty much he learned nothing from the experience. He still climbs, hangs, jumps everywhere.

And I read that same day that in studies they have found that humans have more energy at age 3 than any other time in their lives. And I'm wondering why they had to do studies.

Get In My boat!

This month for Family Home Evening we're learning the versus to Follow the Prophet, so we learning about two different prophets/versus each week. Last week James and Matthias each taught one part of the lesson. James did Abraham and Matthias had Noah. We asked him at dinner if he was ready for his lesson and he started in on the story doing a great job. We told him to remember it for FHE.

After dinner the boys got some things together...Matthias got Little People Noah's Ark and Noah along with some random animals and tools. During his portion of the lesson he held up Noah pictures from the Gospel Art Kit and began...

"Noah taught all the amimals. He told them to be good and to be righteous. But the scary amimals did not listen. The not scary amimals were righteous. Then the not scary amimals got on the boat.....(at this point the telling got a little jarbled).....left scary amimals and then they drove home."

Meanwhile I'm trying to sit and listen politely to what Matthias has to share as Taylor is in complete hysterics, laughing so hard he is wiping tears away. Matthias kept a completely straight face the entire time totally ignoring Taylor.

Later while playing the ark and animals for activity Matthias (as Noah)said to the animals "You will sink. Get in my boat!"

Self Entertainment

People are always amazed at my children's ability to entertain themselves. It seems few children are capable of playing independently or together for more than 10 minutes at a time from what I hear.

The other day I read in a book that children are not born into the world able to entertain themselves, they need to be entertained and expect to be. Until we teach them to entertain themselves. This is really something they need to learn and work at, it doesn't come naturally.

That's exactly it. James didn't just pop out and want to look at a map for 45 minutes at a time. As soon as Matthias was born James didn't haul him off to sit on a blanket for 2 hours and play camping. These skills have been growing over the years because of all the free, unstructured time I force upon them. They really started getting good at it when James was just over 3 and Matthias was 15 months or so.

I've been thinking about this recently as Hannah has been whining any time someone isn't looking at, holding, or talking to her. Her training has begun. And just last week I was able to fold laundry for 30 minutes while she cooked in her kitchen (which she LOVES). It was an amazing feat. Soon she'll be toddling after the boys and ruining all their games.

Reading, Writing, & Arithmetic

James currently wants to be a research doctor when he grows up and a helicopter fire fighter. The other day he realized he had pretty much booked his adult life so he announced to me, "I'm going to be a scientist right now and explore things. I'm not going to play at all, just be a scientist when I'm a kid."

James is really into numbers right now. He loves adding things up and coming up with large numbers. He has started into subtraction even, but adding is his forte right now. The other day he counted to 90 with only about 5 prompts.

He's also learning to read and write. He is currently taking a Robotics class at the Y (I love the Y and don't know why we didn't join years ago) and really enjoys learning about and controlling the robots. I think he even does some really basic programming.

Both the boys are learning to swim from me and James is picking it up fairly well. Hopefully he'll be swimming by the summer time so he can go down all the slides!

His favorite pass times right now are looking at maps, playing Army Kitchen, digging in the back yard, playing with Ryan, and learning about dragons.

Welcome Home James

If you haven't noticed this week is in tribute to James (apart from the aside of the appalling Army Kitchen)...things I want to remember about him that haven't yet made it to the family journal (aka blog).

Not wanting to give all my feelings on James' birth I am focusing only on bringing him home. Vastly opposite from the experiences with my other children, the days at the hospital passed much too quickly. All of a sudden the nurses were telling me I had to leave and take this itty bitty life with me. I was very overwhelmed and completely freaked out. I had no idea what to do with him, how to take care of him, what to expect. I didn't know what he would do or how I would deal with him.

I was totally terrified of what I had gotten myself into. Babies were so cute and fun, but then I was expected to know how to care for one 24/7. It was extremely daunting.

James was lucky enough to be blessed with 4 baby showers prior to his birth. We had SO many blankets, we would just laugh each time we opened another. When we got home from the hospital that first day it was 5pm and we were nervous and worried. We were counting down the seconds until Taylor's mom walked in the door at 8 that night. Those first 3 hours were crazy. But what I remember most is that James managed to spit or poop on 5 of those blankets. In 3 hours. It was hilarious. So that is why you need so many baby blankets...

The first night Grandma Harvey (Kathy) slept in James' room and listened to every last peep, woke me every three hours or so to feed him, then put him back to bed for me. I can't imagine surviving those first few days without her. Luckily after the first one you don't have to listen to every sound and you certainly NEVER wake them up.

While it's amusing to think back on in some respects it still overwhelms me to think of those first few months as a mother. Such a challenging time. But each day we get more comfortable and figure each other out a little better. Motherhood is still daunting, but not terrifying.

James in Sunbeams

Last year.

I've had an email to myself in my inbox for the past year stating "Journal James Sunbeams"

James started Sunbeams a year ago and it was so cute. He was in nursery forever (being born in January) so he was older than most of the kids and really ready to be there. We actually moved into the ward he started Sunbeams at (Park Meadows) the summer he was 3.5 years old so still in nursery. That first Sunday at least 3 people asked us if we were sure he was in nursery and not Sunbeams. As if we would have not realized or forgotten?

I was really excited for him to learn the songs and also to be with him there* which worked out great since I did get called to Primary Pianist in our next ward/branch (Alameda) when he was still in Sunbeams.

James loved his teachers, Brother and Sister Boshaump, in his first Sunbeams and really learned a lot from them. Every week they told us how smart and amazing he was. It was so exciting to finally have a kid in Primary! I'm sure if I had done this a year ago when I should have I would have many more things to tell.

Two weeks ago was actually his first time to participate in Closing Exercises though where he was able to give the prayer. He did a great job!



*I've been in Primary almost my entire married life. Other than a small stint teaching Marriage & Family Sunday School (8 months) and as Relief Society Pianist (6 months)

All My Hopes and Dreams

of playing tea party, kitchen, cooking, baking, gentle, feminine interaction with the acquisition of our first girl toy have been dashed by the invention of:

Army Kitchen

Shower Time

When James was little I hated showering during nap time because it seemed like such a waste of precious time. When he was very small I would lay him on the bathroom rug, once he started moving at 5 months he would sit at the end of the tub shower. In Provo I would have him watch Little Einsteins when it was on Disney at 9 am (back in the time of free cable from BYU).

The best though was when we moved to Houston we had our amazing master bath that was of course attached to our bedroom so I would sit him on the bed where I could see him and give him a special basket of toys reserved just for "shower time". He would sit and play for up to 15 minutes while I showered and got ready.

This worked for two reasons: 1) our bed was (and is) over 3 feet off the ground so it's not easy to get on and off for a 16 month old, and 2) he was not Matthias.

I thought about this today as I grabbed a quick shower while all three kids played kitchen in Hannah's room. The one room I feel safe leaving her in for a few minutes while I shower. Generally I do wait until nap time, but occasionally I leave the kids in her room for 5 minutes while I shower.

I'm sure I never showered with Matthias awake at all. I'm actually surprised I showered at all when Matthias was small. But I can only recall 4-5 times I haven't showered in my life as a mother.